Prospect Info: Caps Top Prospects General Discussion Thread - 2024

[Roshi]

I just don’t think it has been a focus. It’s mostly been at forward and a sprinkle of Dee as well. And then more flyers on goalies. I think we need a top 3 round goalie pick next year or possibly the next (or both).

Dee is also lacking on prospect depth, especially in Hershey. Really just Iorio. Chesley might have a higher ceiling and i hope he goes pro next year. Muggli is interesting too and Hudson but they are both 3-5 years away so a lot to see in their development before they are true NHL prospects. Good news is our core Dee is under 27.

Late to this discussion, but just wanted to pop in and sort of disagree

I dont feel any urgency to use draft picks on goalies and have some stats to back it up;

- Both our current goalies are undrafted.
- Our latest high drafted goalies are Samsonov and Vanecek, both driven out of town.
- Our high goalie picks before that were quite succesful (Varlmaov, Neuvirth), but also were sidelined by a 4th rounders Holtby & Grubauer.

- of all goalies who have played NHL games this season, there is almost double more undrafted goalies than 1st round picks.
- of all goalies who have played NHL games this season there is 40 goalies that have been drafted in top3 rounds and only half of those are still where they were drafted.

(Namedropping)
From the list of NHL goalies in 2024, these were amongst the goalies who were drafted later than 3rd (or undrafted);

Juuse Saros, Igor Shesterkin, Jeremy Swayman, Connor Hellebuyck, Linus Ullmark, Sergei Bobrovsky, Alexander Georgiev, Charlie Lindgren, Logan Thompson, Joey Daccord, Karel Vejmelka, Philipp Grubauer

Just noting what everyone already knows. Goalies are voodoo. Especially drafting goalies. My strategy would be using the draft picks for high end potential and look for goalies by trade/free agency.

Also in case you happen to find yourself a reliable starter that you will use for the next decade as your cornerstone piece, you wont have room for high upside young goalies and will have to take a value-loss eventually. For example: Yaroslav Askarov.

Just for fun, here are goalies drafted between 2010-2020, thats quite a lot of misses for goalies in the first 3 rounds, and judging by it id say its pretty much as "easy" to find your franchise goalie from 4th round than it is from 1st round ;

2010 (total goalies drafted; 21)
1st round ; (11) Jack Campbell & (27) Mark Visentin
2nd round ; (49) Calvin Pickard & (58) Kent Simpson
3rd round ; (84) Scott Wedgewood
4 to later ; (112) Philipp Grubauer, (141) Petr Mrazek, (187) Frederik Andersen

2011 (total goalies drafted; 19)
1st round ; -
2nd round ; (38) Magnus Hellberg, (39) John Gibson, (49) Christopher Gibson
3rd round ; (62) Samu Perhonen, (71) David Honzik, (88) Jordan Binnington
4 to later ; (164) Laurent Brossoit, (188) Anton Forsberg

2012 (total goalies drafted; 24)
1st round ; (19) Andrei Vasilevskiy & (24) Malcolm Subban
2nd round ; (31) Oscar Dansk & (45) Anthony Stolarz
3rd round ; (62) Joonas Korpisalo, (69) Daniel Altshuller, (75) Jon Gillies, (76) Chris Driedger, (80) Jake Paterson, (83) Matt Murray, (87) Frederik Andersen AGAIN
4 to later ; (130) Connor Hellebuyck, (163) Linus Ullmark

2013 (total goalies drafted; 21)
1st round ; -
2nd round ; (36) Zach Fucale, (44) Tristan Jarry, (54) Philippe Desrosiers, (59) Eric Comrie
3rd round ; (63) Spencer Martin, (70) Eamon McAdam, (78) Marcus Hogberg
4 to later ; (99) Juuse Saros

2014 (total goalies drafted; 21)
1st round ; -
2nd round ; (34) Mason McDonald, (36) Thatcher Demko, (37) Alex Nedeljkovic, (39) Vitek Vanecek, (59) Brandon Halverson
3rd round ; (61) Jonas Johansson, (76) Elvis Merzlikins, (78) Ilya Sorokin
4 to later ; (94) Ville Husso, (109) Kaapo Kahkonen, (118) Igor Shesterkin

2015 (total goalies drafted; 24)
1st round ; (22) Ilya Samsonov
2nd round ; (42) MacKenzie Blackwood
3rd round ; (70) Felix Sandstrom, (75) Dan Vladar, (76) Adin Hill, (77) Sam Montembeault, (86) Mike Robinson, (90) Matej Tomek
4 to later ; (145) Karel Vejmelka, (199) Joey Daccord

2016 (total goalies drafted; 18)
1st round ; -
2nd round ; (48) Carter Hart, (54) Tyler Parsons, (55) Filip Gustavsson, (59) Evan Fitzpatrick
3rd round ; (62) Joseph Woll, (75) Jack LaFontaine, (83) Wouter Peeters, (88) Connor Ingram
4 to later ; -

2017 (total goalies drafted; 21)
1st round ; (26) Jake Oettinger
2nd round ; (54) Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen
3rd round ; (64) Michael DiPietro, (72) Matthew Villalta, (78) Stuart Skinner, (80) Kirill Ustmenko, (86) Daniil Tarasov, (88) Keith Petruzzelli
4 to later ; (111) Jeremy Swayman, (199) Cayden Primeau

2018 (total goalies drafted; 28)
1st round ; -
2nd round ; (39) Olof Lindholm & (62) Olivier Rodrigue
3rd round ; (64) Justus Annunen, (72) Jakub Skarek, (84) Jesper Eliasson, (85) Lukas Dostal
4 to later ; (107) Joel Hofer, (136) Akira Schmid, (143) Samuel Ersson

2019 (total goalies drafted; 22)
1st round ; (13) Spencer Knight
2nd round ; (36) Pyotr Kochetkov, (37) Mads Sogaard, (59) Hunter Jones
3rd round ; (67) Erik Portillo, (71) Hugo Alnefelt, (85) Ilya Konovalov, (87) Lukas Parik, (93) Colten Ellis
4 to later ; (156) Arturs Silovs, (202) Trent Miner, (214) Dustin Wolf

2020 (total goalies drafted; 21)
1st round ; (11) Yaroslav Askarov
2nd round ; (46) Drew Commesso & (52) Joel Blomqvist
3rd round ; (71) Leevi Merilainen, (77) Calle Clang, (84) Nico Daws
4 to later ; (212) Devon Levi

 

[Kazer]

Late to this discussion, but just wanted to pop in and sort of disagree

I dont feel any urgency to use draft picks on goalies and have some stats to back it up;

- Both our current goalies are undrafted.
- Our latest high drafted goalies are Samsonov and Vanecek, both driven out of town.
- Our high goalie picks before that were quite succesful (Varlmaov, Neuvirth), but also were sidelined by a 4th rounders Holtby & Grubauer.

- of all goalies who have played NHL games this season, there is almost double more undrafted goalies than 1st round picks.
- of all goalies who have played NHL games this season there is 40 goalies that have been drafted in top3 rounds and only half of those are still where they were drafted.

(Namedropping)
From the list of NHL goalies in 2024, these were amongst the goalies who were drafted later than 3rd (or undrafted);

Juuse Saros, Igor Shesterkin, Jeremy Swayman, Connor Hellebuyck, Linus Ullmark, Sergei Bobrovsky, Alexander Georgiev, Charlie Lindgren, Logan Thompson, Joey Daccord, Karel Vejmelka, Philipp Grubauer

Just noting what everyone already knows. Goalies are voodoo. Especially drafting goalies. My strategy would be using the draft picks for high end potential and look for goalies by trade/free agency.

Also in case you happen to find yourself a reliable starter that you will use for the next decade as your cornerstone piece, you wont have room for high upside young goalies and will have to take a value-loss eventually. For example: Yaroslav Askarov.

Great research. If a high end goalie slips to the Caps pick in the 20s, you probably take him (Sammy didn't work out, but it's still a good approach IMO). Otherwise, I like the approach of taking one a year in the 3rd or later rounds. Early returns on Kempf look pretty good.

Even in the golden era of Caps goaltending (Varly - Neuvirth - Holtby - Grubauer), the Caps had guys who did not work out [Machesney 2005, Dunn 2006, Soberg 2011, Kostenko 2012]. The key is to invest enough capital in the position to pay dividends.

 

[Calicaps]

Great research. If a high end goalie slips to the Caps pick in the 20s, you probably take him (Sammy didn't work out, but it's still a good approach IMO). Otherwise, I like the approach of taking one a year in the 3rd or later rounds. Early returns on Kempf look pretty good.

Even in the golden era of Caps goaltending (Varly - Neuvirth - Holtby - Grubauer), the Caps had guys who did not work out [Machesney 2005, Dunn 2006, Soberg 2011, Kostenko 2012]. The key is to invest enough capital in the position to pay dividends.

What's up with the French/Swiss kid they drafted... Keller? Is he any good?

 

[Kazer]

What's up with the French/Swiss kid they drafted... Keller? Is he any good?

Antoine Keller's numbers at Lausanne don't look great. I would consider him a longshot, which is what you would expect out of a 7th round pick.

Having said that, I did notice that Capitals legend Michael Raffl is currently team captain and Damien Riat is also on Lausanne.

Given what is currently in the system, I would not be surprised if the Caps use a relatively high draft pick 2/3/4 on another goalie. It doesn't look like the Caps have a 'goalie of the future' between Stevenson, Gibson, and Bjorklund, so they will need bodies to fill out the ECHL/AHL pipeline.

 

[Silky mitts]

What's up with the French/Swiss kid they drafted... Keller? Is he any good?

Someone posted about him in the countdown threads last year that he was doing really well. He had a .925 and went 4-2 in the playoffs in the Q last year, currently the backup for a 2nd place team in the Swiss Elite league, 5-2 with an .889. The only goalie who was ahead of him in save % in the playoffs in the Q who won whatever that cup is isn't a pro prospect nor the guy ahead of him on the Swiss team but they're a little older.

 

[Ovechkins Wodka]

I feel like when you draft a first round Goalie you’re almost forced into playing them to soon.

It did not work out for any of our high picks. See young Sammy and Varly in the playoffs.

 

[Rayquaza64]

If we’re gonna go goalie do it in the third/fourth at the earliest. Goalie prospects are too funky that unless they’re a generational goalie prospect odds are they aren’t worth the investment

 

[Kazer]

I feel like when you draft a first round Goalie you’re almost forced into playing them to soon.

It did not work out for any of our high picks. See young Sammy and Varly in the playoffs.

Yeah, the NHL rules on waivers generally work well for forwards, less well for D, and not great for goaltenders.

Since it's based on a mixture of age and years from signing, it means that most D/F players are waivers exempt in 3 years or less [18 and 19 year olds are waiver exempt for longer but rarely make the NHL]. Goalies do get an extra year tacked on to the waiver rules, but they often take much longer than one additional year to be 'ready'.

Spencer Knight, a former first round pick, is a great example. If he were waivers exempt, he would probably be in the AHL. But since he's subject to waivers, he has to stay in the NHL as a backup.

And then looking at his draft (2019 - 6 drafts ago), it helps illustrate the point further. Obviously, there are late bloomers but broadly speaking all forwards and D who are going to make the NHL are in the NHL at this point. Late first round picks like McMichael and Tomasino have over 150 GP at this point and later rounders like Protas and Maccelli are in the same boat. However, when you look at goalies, not a single 2019 goalie has established themselves as a clear starter yet.

Wolf (Calgary) is probably the closest, but he's in a time share for now. Kochetkov and Knight are fully in the NHL but as backups (and don't look to be that close to taking over fully yet). It definitely forces your hand in bringing them up sooner, and it's not ideal for development.

Holtby is the dream from a goalie development standpoint. He came up early and played very well at the NHL level from day one.

 

[DWGie26]

Late to this discussion, but just wanted to pop in and sort of disagree

I dont feel any urgency to use draft picks on goalies and have some stats to back it up;

- Both our current goalies are undrafted.
- Our latest high drafted goalies are Samsonov and Vanecek, both driven out of town.
- Our high goalie picks before that were quite succesful (Varlmaov, Neuvirth), but also were sidelined by a 4th rounders Holtby & Grubauer.

- of all goalies who have played NHL games this season, there is almost double more undrafted goalies than 1st round picks.
- of all goalies who have played NHL games this season there is 40 goalies that have been drafted in top3 rounds and only half of those are still where they were drafted.

(Namedropping)
From the list of NHL goalies in 2024, these were amongst the goalies who were drafted later than 3rd (or undrafted);

Juuse Saros, Igor Shesterkin, Jeremy Swayman, Connor Hellebuyck, Linus Ullmark, Sergei Bobrovsky, Alexander Georgiev, Charlie Lindgren, Logan Thompson, Joey Daccord, Karel Vejmelka, Philipp Grubauer

Just noting what everyone already knows. Goalies are voodoo. Especially drafting goalies. My strategy would be using the draft picks for high end potential and look for goalies by trade/free agency.

Also in case you happen to find yourself a reliable starter that you will use for the next decade as your cornerstone piece, you wont have room for high upside young goalies and will have to take a value-loss eventually. For example: Yaroslav Askarov.

Just for fun, here are goalies drafted between 2010-2020, thats quite a lot of misses for goalies in the first 3 rounds, and judging by it id say its pretty much as "easy" to find your franchise goalie from 4th round than it is from 1st round ;

2010 (total goalies drafted; 21)
1st round ; (11) Jack Campbell & (27) Mark Visentin
2nd round ; (49) Calvin Pickard & (58) Kent Simpson
3rd round ; (84) Scott Wedgewood
4 to later ; (112) Philipp Grubauer, (141) Petr Mrazek, (187) Frederik Andersen

2011 (total goalies drafted; 19)
1st round ; -
2nd round ; (38) Magnus Hellberg, (39) John Gibson, (49) Christopher Gibson
3rd round ; (62) Samu Perhonen, (71) David Honzik, (88) Jordan Binnington
4 to later ; (164) Laurent Brossoit, (188) Anton Forsberg

2012 (total goalies drafted; 24)
1st round ; (19) Andrei Vasilevskiy & (24) Malcolm Subban
2nd round ; (31) Oscar Dansk & (45) Anthony Stolarz
3rd round ; (62) Joonas Korpisalo, (69) Daniel Altshuller, (75) Jon Gillies, (76) Chris Driedger, (80) Jake Paterson, (83) Matt Murray, (87) Frederik Andersen AGAIN
4 to later ; (130) Connor Hellebuyck, (163) Linus Ullmark

2013 (total goalies drafted; 21)
1st round ; -
2nd round ; (36) Zach Fucale, (44) Tristan Jarry, (54) Philippe Desrosiers, (59) Eric Comrie
3rd round ; (63) Spencer Martin, (70) Eamon McAdam, (78) Marcus Hogberg
4 to later ; (99) Juuse Saros

2014 (total goalies drafted; 21)
1st round ; -
2nd round ; (34) Mason McDonald, (36) Thatcher Demko, (37) Alex Nedeljkovic, (39) Vitek Vanecek, (59) Brandon Halverson
3rd round ; (61) Jonas Johansson, (76) Elvis Merzlikins, (78) Ilya Sorokin
4 to later ; (94) Ville Husso, (109) Kaapo Kahkonen, (118) Igor Shesterkin

2015 (total goalies drafted; 24)
1st round ; (22) Ilya Samsonov
2nd round ; (42) MacKenzie Blackwood
3rd round ; (70) Felix Sandstrom, (75) Dan Vladar, (76) Adin Hill, (77) Sam Montembeault, (86) Mike Robinson, (90) Matej Tomek
4 to later ; (145) Karel Vejmelka, (199) Joey Daccord

2016 (total goalies drafted; 18)
1st round ; -
2nd round ; (48) Carter Hart, (54) Tyler Parsons, (55) Filip Gustavsson, (59) Evan Fitzpatrick
3rd round ; (62) Joseph Woll, (75) Jack LaFontaine, (83) Wouter Peeters, (88) Connor Ingram
4 to later ; -

2017 (total goalies drafted; 21)
1st round ; (26) Jake Oettinger
2nd round ; (54) Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen
3rd round ; (64) Michael DiPietro, (72) Matthew Villalta, (78) Stuart Skinner, (80) Kirill Ustmenko, (86) Daniil Tarasov, (88) Keith Petruzzelli
4 to later ; (111) Jeremy Swayman, (199) Cayden Primeau

2018 (total goalies drafted; 28)
1st round ; -
2nd round ; (39) Olof Lindholm & (62) Olivier Rodrigue
3rd round ; (64) Justus Annunen, (72) Jakub Skarek, (84) Jesper Eliasson, (85) Lukas Dostal
4 to later ; (107) Joel Hofer, (136) Akira Schmid, (143) Samuel Ersson

2019 (total goalies drafted; 22)
1st round ; (13) Spencer Knight
2nd round ; (36) Pyotr Kochetkov, (37) Mads Sogaard, (59) Hunter Jones
3rd round ; (67) Erik Portillo, (71) Hugo Alnefelt, (85) Ilya Konovalov, (87) Lukas Parik, (93) Colten Ellis
4 to later ; (156) Arturs Silovs, (202) Trent Miner, (214) Dustin Wolf

2020 (total goalies drafted; 21)
1st round ; (11) Yaroslav Askarov
2nd round ; (46) Drew Commesso & (52) Joel Blomqvist
3rd round ; (71) Leevi Merilainen, (77) Calle Clang, (84) Nico Daws
4 to later ; (212) Devon Levi

I enjoyed this read. No doubt goalies are all over the place and hard to pick. But you gotta take some swings on goalies as well. It is almost not BPA anymore… it’s Best Player Ceiling. We did that with Terik. We have taken some risky early picks whom fell and worked out. Now a bit of that on goalie. It is time.

 

[Cush]

2 assists for Cristall

 

[usiel]

2 assists for Cristall

Both primary.

He's up to 5th in points.

 

[Silky mitts]

I enjoyed this read. No doubt goalies are all over the place and hard to pick. But you gotta take some swings on goalies as well. It is almost not BPA anymore… it’s Best Player Ceiling. We did that with Terik. We have taken some risky early picks whom fell and worked out. Now a bit of that on goalie. It is time.

There are more people on Earth that can play running back in the NFL than any other position so even though they're among the most recognizable people on the team they don't go in the 1st round and make the least money among position players. There are many many many more people on Earth that can play goalie in the NHL than RB in the NFL, and this is a factor why if you pick by Best Player Ceiling you're never taking a goalie first round. Even if you take a team like the Rangers with an elite goalie in the NHL the majority of the last 20 years it's really more of an albatross having to pay a goalie at the top of the market more than an asset. Anyone that says Florida has been 2 finals paying Bob $10M+, he almost blew the Finals for them last year and I'd rather have Logan Thompson than him because you get a $9M+ player too and LT went for 2 3rds.

 

[wickedwitch]

Leonard (17th) and McMichael (50th) are on the top U23 players list from TSN: Jumpin' Jack Flash: Hughes tops TSN's Top 50 Under-24 players | TSN

 

[43sfriends]

Kind of a joke, McMichael has already shown he is better than almost everyone on that list.

 

[usiel]

Leonard (17th) and McMichael (50th) are on the top U23 players list from TSN: Jumpin' Jack Flash: Hughes tops TSN's Top 50 Under-24 players | TSN

Interesting list. Hopefully McM will be happy at 50 and keeps trolling this list as the season goes on.

 

[Hivemind]

Not that I disagree those guys are way better than who we have now, but when you look at the list of goalies the Caps drafted or signed as UDFAs since the Samsonov pick, I think Hunter Shepard's the only one to even get a cup of coffee in the NHL. I doubt having Prior or Korn over the last 8 years would've made a difference unless those guys were involved in the draft process (which, maybe they were, I honestly don't know).

Both Prior and Korn were involved in the drafting, occasionally appearing in draft day interviews to talk about the goalies selected. After leaving the Caps, both took on titles similar to "Director of Goaltending" with their new teams, as well.

I also think the lack of Korn is a big part of why the last two goalies they did invest early picks on didn't end up sticking in Washington.

Kind of a joke, McMichael has already shown he is better than almost everyone on that list.

The list is definitely leaning heavily on the speculation/projection about where these players' ceilings are. They have guys like Lucas Raymond and Matt Boldy ranked beneath guys who haven't made their NHL debut (including Ryan Leonard).